Robot 6

Loki will be bisexual, occasionally a woman in ‘Agent of Asgard’

Loki has undergone several changes over the past several years, returning in a female body after Ragnarok, reincarnating in the form of a boy (the fan-favorite “Kid Loki”) and then, in this week’s Young Avengers #11 — OK, we won’t spoil it for you, but Marvel’s recent announcement of Loki: Agent of Asgard tells you all you need to know.

Well, maybe not all you need to know.

Responding on his blog to a fan’s questions, writer Al Ewing reveals that in the new series the god of mischief’s gender and sexuality will be fluid. “Yes, Loki is bi and I’ll be touching on that,” he wrote last night. “He’ll shift between genders occasionally as well.”

Neither of those will be particularly surprising to anyone familiar with Norse mythology, where the shape-shifting Loki is frequently viewed, in modern terms, as transgender and bisexual.

Apparently peppered with even more Loki questions, Ewing followed up this morning with a moratorium titled “Enough Loki For Now”: “I’m not The Loki Guy until February, and right now I feel like I’m stepping on toes, so I’m going to stop talking about Loki outside of interviews until early January. After that, I’ll be as available as before. […] So, how about those Mighty Avengers, huh?”

Debuting in February as part of the publisher’s All-New Marvel NOW! initiative, the espionage-tinged Loki: Agent of Asgard finds the trickster serving the All-Mother as the defender of the home of the gods.

“One of the recent evolutions of the character is that he’s come to enjoy living amongst mortals as much as his brother does, and we’ll be carrying that on,” Ewing told Comic Book Resources earlier this month. “I feel like it’s nice to mix the two styles- – get a good helping of the epic fantasy of Asgard, while at the same time sticking to the espionage/con-artist genre. Two great tastes that taste great together.”

ajaj

welp

He’s a god though so would he even really worry about being bisexual or whatever? Tons of mythologies have all sorts of deities having sex with anything and everything under the sun and never bat an eye about it.

JohnnyFive

Vizator

While I never want to see male Loki in bed with another male, I’m fine with him shape shifting to anything or anyone and doing it with anything or anyone in order to get what he wants. He’s the father of Fenris and Jormunnger which is a wolf and giant serpent. Calling him “bi” or “transgendered” is extremely short-sighted and small-minded. I doubt Loki is attracted to anyone.

Some great comments here. Exactly: Loki wouldn’t care what anyone thought. If you’re going to take this approach I’d love to see a female or transgender (transgendered is indeed not a word) writer tackle the story.

And over the years many male writers in comics have romanticized this notion that “shifting between genders” is this highly spiritual thing — that being of both worlds gives you some sort of bizarre clairvoyance. I always thought it was a juvenile fantasy and if you are a transgender sort of insulting.

That being said, stories are all about execution. We’ll see what Al comes up with.

Edron500

I can only imagine how much worse than Mighty Avengers this is gonna be, and that is saying something. Comic books are in a real bad place at the moment. Both major companies keep trying to be trendy through retcon and it’s bs. Why let this hack touch a major character like Loki? This comic sounds freaking terrible. Loki is an iconic character and deserves more than this. If Jonathan Hickman, Geoff Johns, and Rick Remender didn’t exist, I truly don’t think I would even read comic books at this point. This interpretation of Loki sounds about as awesome as the new lobo…barf.

Dave

Al Ewing is hardly a hack. His work for 2000ad and specifically Judge Dredd is highly regarded. I don’t like everything he’s done but his stories tend to have mor plus points than negative and he is way better than most writers. To use Geoff Johns as an example is rubbing salt into the wounds, as Johns may be a good revisionist but has a tendency to just rewrite old stories changing bits he doesn’t care for.

Rollo Tomassi

Why don’t they ever pitch books like Hawkeye and Daredevil according to their sexuality?

“Matt Fraction and Dave Aja have a new Hawkeye book coming out! In it, Clint Barton will definitely be straight and having lots of sex with women! He will also, occasionally, fight crime if we can fit it in…”

Does that sound like a stupid pitch for a book? So does any book that touts the bedroom shenanigans of the character as a selling point, no matter if they’re bi, gay, or straight.

HARDMAN!

I love watching the generational divide crop up in comments sections. These characters do nothing but change, refresh and renew, in part due to the nature of their ongoing stories. The problem of course comes when fans fixate on the era which they grew up in and are unable to accept ANY change to the “Head-Cannon” they possess. This Loki change is another. Those that see Loki as fundamentally a white make power fantasy will only ever see his transformation to female as cosmetic, purely visual ( this is also how they see women, but later for that). The reality of that change would in fact be more than that especially since Loki is NOT a white human male and can be portrayed as having a much more nebulous idea of sexuality. Fanboy bitching is a right and a freedom, but its almost always the product of myopia. That said let’s go stew Gillen over ruining Tony Stark FOREVER!!!!

Poneley

Woah! Folks are totally jumping the gun and overreacting. Ya’ll do realize, that as a trickster god, being able to shape shift, change genders, sexuality, and what-have-you, is part of who he/she/it is. Having a “freak out” about a lady Loki who might sleep with men, makes about as much sense as freaking out that water is wet. Its inherent in Loki’s nature to shift and change. Being a trickster, and a god, the character will not have any hang-ups about sexuality and gender identity as some folks seem to have personally taken.

Oh and, its also fiction!

Turtleboy

Remember folks, mythological Loki gave birth to a horse somehow. And fangirls love the character so stroking those fan-fiction fires isn’t such a bad idea. Usually I don’t like this gender-bending stuff, but in the case of a conflicted shape-shifter like Loki, it makes sense.

Brandon Y.

“Does that sound like a stupid pitch for a book? So does any book that touts the bedroom shenanigans of the character as a selling point, no matter if they’re bi, gay, or straight.”

He was answering a question (an informed question that cited mythological text), not touting. If Loki’s sexuality was a selling point, Ewing or Marvel would have stated it from the outset. That’s how marketing works.

I think Rollo Tomassi has a pretty valid point. And comics should shift and change and explore ideas. But the marketing for these books comes across as very gimmicky. I understand they need to move units to justify their existence, but it would be nice if readers were allowed to discover stories as they developed naturally. Maybe the economics doesn’t allow for that luxury anymore.

Nathan Daniels

richard

Ugh… everything i’ve heard about this book doesn’t bode well. It sounds super confused, trying to desperately be a Loki comic that’s loyal to the comics as well as the movies, with lots of gimmicky sounding things that seem to be the kitchen sink approach to story telling.

This bisexual thing is fine, the shape shifting thing, yeah, fine, although i always thought loki’s shape shifting (man to girl to boy) was more like The Doctor’s regenerations.

Iambenjie

I haven’t read the book because it’s not out yet and I’m not familiar with the mythological Loki. However I have read some of Al Ewing’s work and I take exception to any classification of him as a hack. He has done some great stories on 2000AD and is John Wagner’s preferred successor as head-writer on Judge Dredd.

And he writes Zombo, which is well…about a crazy as a squirel hyped up on caffeine and tossed into a washing machine. Not for everyone, but for those who like it is it is absolutely hilarious. His send up of the Fantastic Four had me in stitches (and I say this as someone who loves the FF).

I also read his novel, The Fictional Man. It is at turns dark, serious and heartfelt and blackly funny. I recommend it highly. I have a couple of his other books on my bedside table waiting to be read.

So, I am willing to give Al a little slack.

Dean

I’m afraid I have to agree with the above comment, that I would give this 10 to 12 issues, the length of the Fearless Defenders run. And at a probable 3.99 price point… I just see this sinking like a stone. And I don’t think that has anything to do with shape shifting, but just muddled storytelling. I think this will go in the “Marvel No” category.

Edron500

I haven’t read any of his stuff from across the pond, but Mighty Avengers is terrible. This idea is also about as dumb as I could possibly imagine. I see no reason for the constant need to revitalize characters that already work. I don’t want or need any sexuality in a Loki marvel comic. The mythical Loki and the comic version are essentially different characters so I don’t buy that rationalization either. I would take one of Geoff’s books any day over what I’ve seen of this guy. If they want gay, lesbian , or transgender characters in their books, then they should create new characters.

Robert

God…. why this, all the time? I hope this is not focused on too much. Didn’t they learn anything from Fearless Defenders, stop focusing on these characters sexuality and trying to make a cultural point and actually write something good

Ktaylor

And like that, I now have no interest in this book. It was bad enough that they put evil Loki back in control of the body. But now he’s older, and now he’s a a gender changing bisexual. Why? There was no one asking for this.I think I’ve just gotten too old to be reading this crap anymore. These so called writers pander too much to causes and their own personal agendas. All the while concentrating less and less on writing good and interesting stories. That’s the reason these books don’t even last a year. But the writer gets his/her name out there as someone not afraid of taking a chance. What happened to all the writers who wanted to write the character, not change the character to suit them? DC had already drove me off with the reboot. Now Marvel is slowly doing the same. Nothing but bad characterizations, and laughable plots. People with these alternate sexual lifestyles make up a tiny, very tiny percent of the population. Comic book readers make up an even tinier part of the population. SO it stands to reason there would be an even tinier percent of alt-sex comic readers. SO why do the so called writers keep pandering to this miniscule minority?

David

Re “this notion that “shifting between genders” is this highly spiritual thing — that being of both worlds gives you some sort of bizarre clairvoyance”–actually, this is a fairly traditional notion in many cultures, such as the berdache or two-spirit person revered in tribes across North America. Loki himself being an ancient mythic being could fit with that, whether contemporary people perceive ordinary human trans or bi people that way.

Also, is Loki really evil anymore? I thought he’d more or less reformed, or changed somehow, and the new series doesn’t seem to cast him as really evil per se…

David

Drew Melbourne

I don’t really understand which Loki we’re reading about. Original Kid Loki was ultimately a different character who SPOILERed at the end of Journey Into Mystery. New Kid Loki was theoretically original evil Loki in disguised (or trapped in kid form). I don’t understand why they’re now writing New Kid Loki as if he’s Old Kid Loki.

Hopefully it’ll make more sense between now and February!

Em Azarch

Transgender and bisexual? I’m sorry, but we’re talking about a *trickster* *god* here, not a mortal human being. That’s dragging a whole swamped boat of politics, psychology and biology into the metaphoric and ultimately more lucid mythic realm.

David: Not denying there is a cultural/historical/literary/mythical basis to draw from and highly aware of it via my own studies but what we’re seeing here is a very Cliff Note’s version of that. It has been a highly romanticized device used by comic writers (typically white males) past and present with very mixed results.

Other Chris

Eric T.

Loki with a romantic life (regardless of anatomies/species involved) strikes me as roughly similar to Captain America with a gambling addiction, or Volstagg somberly attending Weight Watchers meetings. Sure, there may be a few new and different stories to be told there, but… It doesn’t ‘fit’, in my opinion.

Will

This is one of those things I do not understand why it needed to be announced it makes sense for a trickster god not to give a damn about who he or she sleeps with its part of the trickster nature but why announce this? just write a good book and do not do crap like this for PR. It makes it seem like being Bisexual (something I am) is a huge deal that needs to be broadcasted when it does not.

gwangung

“This is one of those things I do not understand why it needed to be announced it makes sense for a trickster god not to give a damn about who he or she sleeps with its part of the trickster nature but why announce this? just write a good book and do not do crap like this for PR. It makes it seem like being Bisexual (something I am) is a huge deal that needs to be broadcasted when it does not.””

Marvel Loki never gave birth to a horse, Fenrir and Jormungandr are NOT his children in the comics (as far as I know). Only Hela is his “daughter”.

So while Myth!Loki was very much the sleep with everything that moves kinda guy, Marvel Loki was not really shown to have any sort of flings. There was that one time he was interrupted by Thor just when he was getting it on with Lorelei, so him being interested in women was canon, but not the other side.

So the shapeshifting to other gender is not new (or well the body-snatching of ladies), that’s true. The confirmation of his bisexuality IS new though. Just because something is true in the myths, it’s not automatically true in the comics.

Also, it’s not that they’re turning Loki bisexual NOW, he’s ALWAYS been that way, but only now will it be acknowledged.

Krazy for Komix

Let’s not get distracted here.
ONCE AGAIN Marvel is retro-fitting costume design. I haven’t been reading any of the Thor related titles (other than Thor: God of Thunder), and I don’t care what contortions those writers may have gone through to make it “make sense.” But that costume is NOT Loki’s.

The cover of Loki: Agent of Asgard, shows Hiddl . . . sorry, it shows Loki in a decidedly Marvel Cinematic Universe version of his costume. Again, I don’t care what the rationale is, but THAT’S NOT LOKI! That’s Tommy Hiddleston in his green duster coat and chopped off head gear. Fine for the needs of a “more realistic” movie, but there’s NO NEED to redesign the comic character to match the less exciting film version.

I know the reason. Marketing.
Still, it’s not necessary.

It’s too much.

Rich

matthew

“Ah the PC Brigade are ruining my comics” is a bullshit excuse. Everybody deserves to have their wish fulfilment in comics, so why not trans people or bisexual people? Why does everything have to cater to boring straight white males? I’m a boring straight white male and I couldn’t care less about being given *more* boring straight white males in comics.

HK

Oh lord, all the “bisexuality is a gimmick” people need to stop. To the person who said that it’s stupid to announce a straight character’s sexuality: Yes, because people assume straight until said otherwise. As a lesbian who has seen people argue until the cows come home that canonically glbt characters (as in, in romances with the same sex, outright stating attraction or love, etc) may NOT be glbt due to flimsy desperate excuses, you outright have to stay it up front or homophobes will try explaining everything away. Hell, they probably will anyway. You’ve got people doing that in the comments right here. If there’s really “no difference” between announcing a character being straight (like half the covers that show male power fantasies with women plastered to them do) then read the comic and treat it the same as you would any other. If you actually think there IS a big difference then maaaaybe you need to acknowledge that in yourself.

And stop calling exploration of sexuality a gimmick. Just stop. Please.

Blythe

Please, everyone, let’s remember that the Marvel character Loki is based off of the mythological figure Loki, who was a shape-changing trickster god that gave birth to an eight-legged horse…whose name translates to “slippy.” Loki being “bi” or “transgender” is like the tip of the freakin’ iceberg… Let’s all spend less time worrying about what his gender-parts are going to look like, and judge the story and art FOR OURSELVES when it comes out.

KTaylor

Yes but this Loki isn’t the mythological one. He has a well documented history in the comics that he appears in. And this goes against it all. As far as let the work speak for itself, well that’s not gonna happen as this was all planned out. This slip of information is an attempt to generate buzz about what is most likely going to be a crappy book. But hey go ahead and pander to sensationalism, and don’t worry about quality. This is the reason why these companies can’t put out for long time. None of these new ideas that have come along lately have any lasting power. Its not about “male power fantasies”, like some of you arm chair psychologists keep throwing out. You don’t want to discuss the issue, you just keep attacking the person with a differing opinion. But that’s OK, Keep on creating comics for the miniscule minority that can’t support the industry and you’ll be be left with nothing. Comics have already slipped so far when it comes to how much they sell from when I started. Saying that the industry is in great shape is laughable. Its riding the swirly of death right down the crapper.

Kessa

fletcherc

Dee

Okay just need to point out to ajaj that ‘Transgendered’ is infact a word and was published in The American Heritage Dictionary; so you can use either word if you so please in your article as both are perfectly acceptable.

And now onto my comments.

I am not surprised that they are going to be making him bisexual, though I think the term Pansexual would be a better term when it comes to the chaotic god of lies and mischief. Seeing as I do not think it is physical that arouses his attraction to another person but rather their mental prowess. The whole stimulate the mind to stimulate the body ordeal.

Flower

I don’t see anything wrong with him being gender fluid and bisexual. Especially if he is that way in Norse mythology. Actually, I quite like the concept. It creates verity and controversy and challenges what is traditionally socially acceptable for media. It also acknowledges the fact that people like that very much exist, raising awareness and giving people who possibly feel very misunderstood and alone a cool and popular character to sympathize with.

It feels like a progressive breath of fresh air for the industry.

Andreas

Bisexuality and transgenderism seem like pretty natural states for a trickster-god spy. What’s interesting about Loki in any interpretation – mythology to Marvel movies and all points inbetween – is that he’s hard to define and pin down. What’s he going to do next? Who’s he going to do next? You just don’t know.

Superhero comics are at their awesome core big-budget fantasies about violence, sex and wish fulfillment and should be directed towards everyone, no matter what some sourpuss boys’ club reactionary thinks. Books like this will both include people who were excluded before and challenge those who already were included, so we all win.

FredII

I recall a line from the brilliant Ares limited series, when his men learn that he has horses as children.
“It is different for gods”.

I will be very happy to see Lady Loki back among the pages, and why wouldn’t a trickster toss his clever smile at any gender or sex as is necessary to get the job done. (Just don’t give him a paramour man, Loki needs to be free!)

Have loved Loki since Dark Reign, and his story just keeps getting better!